Captive Paradise
A History of Hawaii
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Narrated by:
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Joe Barrett
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By:
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James L. Haley
About this listen
In the tradition of Nathaniel Philbrick and David McCullough comes the first full-scale narrative history of Hawaii, an epic tale of empire, industry, war, and culture.
The most recent state to join the union, Hawaii is the only one to have once been a royal kingdom. After its discovery by Captain Cook in the late 18th century, Hawaii was fought over by European powers determined to take advantage of its position as the crossroads of the Pacific. The arrival of the first missionaries marked the beginning of the struggle between a native culture with its ancient gods, sexual libertinism, and rites of human sacrifice and the rigid values of the Calvinists. While Hawaii's royal rulers adopted Christianity, they also fought to preserve their ancient ways. But the success of the ruthless American sugar barons sealed their fate, and in1893 the American Marines overthrew Liliuokalani, the last queen of Hawaii.
Captive Paradise is the story of King Kamehameha I, the Conqueror, who unified the islands through terror and bloodshed but whose dynasty succumbed to inbreeding; of Gilded Age tycoons like Claus Spreckels, who brilliantly outmaneuvered his competitors; of firebrand Lorrin Thurston, who was determined that Hawaii be ruled by whites; of President McKinley, who presided over the eventual annexation of the islands. Not since James Michener's classic novel Hawaii has there been such a vibrant and compelling portrait of an extraordinary place and its people.
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In his first book of history, Away Off Shore, New York Times best-selling author Nathaniel Philbrick reveals the people and the stories behind what was once the whaling capital of the world. Beyond its charm, quaint local traditions, and whaling yarns, Philbrick explores the origins of Nantucket in this comprehensive history. From the English settlers who thought they were purchasing a "Native American ghost town" but actually found a fully realized society, the story of Nantucket is a truly unique chapter of American history.
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There once were some (wo)men in Nantucket...
- By Darwin8u on 02-03-19
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Sicily
- An Island at the Crossroads of History
- By: John Julius Norwich
- Narrated by: Michael Healy
- Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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"Sicily," said Goethe, "is the key to everything." It is the largest island in the Mediterranean, the stepping-stone between Europe and Africa, the link between the Latin West and the Greek East. Sicily's strategic location has tempted Roman emperors, French princes, and Spanish kings. The subsequent struggles to conquer and keep it have played crucial roles in the rise and fall of the world's most powerful dynasties.
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DISAPPOINTING
- By SRdto on 11-22-16
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Isabella
- The Warrior Queen
- By: Kirstin Downey
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 21 hrs and 12 mins
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An engrossing and revolutionary biography of Isabella of Castile, the controversial Queen of Spain who sponsored Christopher Columbus's journey to the New World, established the Spanish Inquisition, and became one of the most influential female rulers in history.
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Poorly narrated
- By Amazon Customer on 02-23-15
By: Kirstin Downey
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Toussaint Louverture
- A Revolutionary Life
- By: Philippe Girard
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
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Philippe Girard shows how Toussaint Louverture transformed himself from lowly freedman into revolutionary hero as the mastermind of the bloody slave revolt of 1791. By 1801, Louverture was governor of the colony where he had once been a slave. But his lifelong quest to be accepted as a member of the colonial elite ended in despair: he spent the last year of his life in a French prison cell. His example nevertheless inspired anticolonial and Black nationalist movements well into the 20th century.
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very powerful story
- By jim on 01-06-17
By: Philippe Girard
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Making Haste from Babylon
- The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World: A New History
- By: Nick Bunker
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 18 hrs and 19 mins
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At the end of 1618, a blazing green star soared across the night sky over the northern hemisphere. From the Philippines to the Arctic, the comet became a sensation and a symbol, a warning of doom or a promise of salvation. Two years later, as the Pilgrims prepared to sail across the Atlantic on board the Mayflower, the atmosphere remained charged with fear and expectation. Men and women readied themselves for war, pestilence, or divine retribution. Against this background, and amid deep economic depression, the Pilgrims conceived their enterprise of exile.
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Excellent, detailed and eye-opening
- By David on 09-20-15
By: Nick Bunker
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The Loyal Son
- The War in Ben Franklin's House
- By: Daniel Mark Epstein
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 16 hrs and 28 mins
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Ben Franklin is the most lovable of America's founding fathers. His wit, his charm, his inventiveness - even his grandfatherly appearance - are legendary. But this image obscures the scandals that dogged him throughout his life. In The Loyal Son, award-winning historian Daniel Mark Epstein throws the spotlight on one of the more enigmatic aspects of Franklin's biography: his complex and confounding relationship with his illegitimate son, William.
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Gripping Narrative
- By Jean on 08-07-17
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The Black Count
- Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo
- By: Tom Reiss
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
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General Alex Dumas is a man almost unknown today, yet his story is strikingly familiar—because his son, the novelist Alexandre Dumas, used his larger-than-life feats as inspiration for such classics as The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers.
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The story behind the greatest novelist of all time
- By Melinda on 01-13-13
By: Tom Reiss
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Black Tudors
- The Untold Story
- By: Miranda Kaufmann
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
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A Black porter publicly whips a White English gentleman in a Gloucestershire manor house. A heavily pregnant African woman is abandoned on an Indonesian island by Sir Francis Drake. A Mauritanian diver is dispatched to salvage lost treasures from the Mary Rose.... Miranda Kaufmann reveals the absorbing stories of some of the Africans who lived free in Tudor England.
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I thought I knew it all...
- By Sylvia Schmidt on 08-01-19
By: Miranda Kaufmann
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An Imperfect God
- George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America
- By: Henry Wiencek
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Abridged
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Washington was born and raised among Blacks and mixed-race people; he and his wife had blood ties to the slave community. Yet as a young man he bought and sold slaves without scruple, even raffled off children to collect debts (an incident ignored by earlier biographers). Then, on the Revolutionary battlefields where he commanded both Black and White troops, Washington's attitudes began to change.
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Excellent handling of one part of Wahington's life
- By buffaloboy on 05-20-04
By: Henry Wiencek
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It is 1801, and President Thomas Jefferson has assembled a deep-water navy to fight the growing threat of piracy, as American civilians are regularly kidnapped by Islamist brigands and held for ransom, enslaved, or killed, all at their captors' whim. The Berber States of North Africa, especially Tripoli, claimed their faith gave them the right to pillage anyone who did not submit to their religion.
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Listen to the sample
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Based on an ancestral Hawaiian shamanic ritual, the healing practice of Ho'oponopono teaches you to cleanse your consciousness of negative memories, unconscious fears, and dysfunctional programming and grant yourself forgiveness, peace, and love. In this step-by-step guide, the authors explain how to apply Ho'oponopono to traumatic past events, destructive thought patterns, family dynamics, daily annoyances, or any other disagreeable event in your life, from traffic jams to relationship breakups.
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it's like listening to Siri
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In Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell argues that 1898 might be a year just as crucial to our nation's identity, a year when, in an orgy of imperialism, the United States annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and invaded Cuba and then the Philippines, becoming a meddling, self-serving, militaristic international superpower practically overnight. Of all the countries the United States invaded or colonized in 1898, Vowell considers the story of the Americanization of Hawaii to be the most intriguing.
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Sarah Vowell does it again!
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In 1866, 12 men and women and one small child were forced aboard a leaky schooner and cast away to a natural prison on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. Two weeks later, a dozen others were exiled, and then 40 more, and then 100 more. Tracked by bounty hunters and torn screaming from their families, the luckless were loaded into shipboard cattle stalls and abandoned in a lawless place where brutality held sway. Many did not have leprosy, and most of those who did were not contagious.
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Interesting
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What listeners say about Captive Paradise
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- MindinMotion
- 12-14-17
Must read prior to visiting Hawaii
Would you consider the audio edition of Captive Paradise to be better than the print version?
Yes, if only for the pronunciation of Hawaiian words
What did you like best about this story?
The way it was detailed and composed.
What about Joe Barrett’s performance did you like?
Good pronunciation of Hawaiian words, interesting voice.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
No, I knew of the basic history which is not necessarily a happy story, but the writer did moderate some of the worst parts by telling the context of the actions.
Any additional comments?
This should enhance any visit to the islands. It is very light on events after about 1900 and has nothing since statehood.
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2 people found this helpful
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- PJL
- 03-18-23
Onipa’a
A much more detailed history of the Hawaiian monarchy and the imperialist colonization of the islands than I was ever taught growing up in Hawai’i during the late 1960s and 70s or through indoctrination by James Michener. What shame burned my soul upon hearing the stories of the detailed actions of Thurston and Dole, white men after whom a chapel and a cafeteria are named at my school, yes Punahou. While my heart has always ached for tribulations of Queen Liliuokalani, I learned for the first time about the kuhina nui and found new respect for the important roles played in politics and culture by royal women like Ka’ahumanu, Princess Ruth, and Queen Emma that are relayed by the author in memorable detailed anecdotes. I also was completely unaware of the valiant efforts of the women who gathered signatures throughout the islands to petition against annexation or the world events (like the Spanish in Cuba) that ultimately pushed annexation through. I had always blamed the missionaries, sailors, and sugar industry for so much of the blight and injustice done to the islands and now I understand how our tragic history is about so much more.
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- margie e herman
- 11-13-23
Fascinating and balanced perspective.
I was uninformed regarding much of Hawaiian history. This work gives a brief but comprehensive summary of the history from Cook to date. Aloha.
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- Sean
- 01-04-15
A balanced perspective
An in depth look at Hawaiian history from all sides.
Most histories either vilify the white man or explain how the natives got what they deserved. The author does a good job of portraying the major characters as real human beings warts and all. Still, one comes away with tremendous sympathy for the native Hawaiians.
He clearly demonstrates that the native monarchs were just as complicit in commercializing the islands as the sugar barons or sea captains. And they did it with full understanding of the consequences of their actions.
He dispels the myth of the "good old days" by pointing out that in pre-contact Hawaii 9,999 out of 10,000 natives were essentially serfs subject to human sacrifice or capital punishment at the whim of the rulers.
He makes no apologies for the annexation movement condemning it in the harshest terms. But he is also quick to quell historical "what ifs" by pointing out that the next most likely fate for the islands was to become a Japanese protectorate--a bullet dodged.
I enjoyed the performance but I dislike the current trend to perform audiobooks as opposed to reading them. A Scottish character--break out the Highland brogue, a Spaniard--rev up the RRRRRs. I wish they would offer a straight reading along with the performance version of these books.
I would recommend this book to anyone seriously interested in Hawaiian history, but it is detailed so don't expect to get through in on a plane ride to your island vacation.
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14 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Anonymous User
- 11-30-20
A beautiful history.
You will learn about a people, their culture, and their confrontation with the wider world and the march of "civilization".
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1 person found this helpful
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- Thaddeus Joel Johnson
- 09-19-15
An Excellent Summary of the Hawaiian Monarchy.
I particularly enjoyed Haley's honest assessment of Hawaiian culture, as opposed to a whitewashed nostalgia of native life. I wasn't expecting his treatment of the American era to be so brief, but I suppose that goes beyond the subject of this book which focuses on the creation of an American territory in place of a Hawaiian kingdom.
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- Brad
- 02-22-23
A Complete History
Very interesting book. The author gives a complete overview of the history of Hawaii. Giving the motivations and historical facts from both the European colonizers and native population. Great information to understand where we've come from and what problems we need to deal with.
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- HappyHeathen
- 02-24-22
Good info, but annoying performance
Good information/history presented, but crippled by over-emphasis of 'okina witth paired vowels, under-use of kahako¬ and employing accents when acting out foreign voices made for annoying listening sessions.
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- Kau'i Baumhofer
- 10-01-21
Pronunciation was cringeworthy, but otherwise great
As a Native Hawaiian scholar who appreciates research that does not sugar-coat the past, I very much enjoyed this piece of scholarship. Some of my favorite parts included the personal stories of the ali’i, which really brought them to life as passionate, complicated people. The narrator, tried so hard and I want to acknowledge that, but auwē! The pronunciation was really bad, especially “Kalākaua.” As long as you ignore the pronunciation of the narrator (who otherwise did a great job), this is a really interesting book.
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- Cherish Quick
- 05-11-23
Great production with awesome narration
The reading was superb. The content was the right length. I just moved here and really appreciated the historical context of what I see day to day.
Highly recommend for any history buff or someone who wants to hear a good story.
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